


The Veteran

by OtakuElf



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuElf/pseuds/OtakuElf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn recuperates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Veteran

**Author's Note:**

> For those of us who have been around since the battle against the Empire. Who have seen death on the ice fields of Hoth, and fought the dark side in many of its forms.
> 
> Old veterans are not always what you expect.

It was called the Veteran’s Garden. Wherever the Resistance traveled, some bit of space was given over to green. Often a place of healing, there had been times when those shades of green had been held in containers, frequently old supply crates - repurposed. Now, though, the rough square of planting took pride of place by the entrance to the command bunker. After all, green growth, no matter how obviously cultivated, was just as difficult to hide in a jungle as an airfield full of X-wings.

Vining plants from the moon of Endor vied for place with varietals from a hundred jungle worlds. Desert succulents and ice blossoms from Hoth all found their place within the garden. Flowers, delicate and tiny, now all but extinct on Coruscant, bloomed near to spikes of pollen-producing semi-sentients from the Outer Rim. It was a tangle at times, wild-looking, burgeoning with dark, dangerous greens of older plants, ivies and teals, the golden green of new growth.

The gardener, though she preferred to be called "a farmer", was an older woman, iron-gray hair with streaks of black trailing down her back in a braided tail. She was often found bent over the soil in raised beds, her gloved fingers deep in the soft black soil of one, or the slick red clay of another. Plants grew around her, and the air was thick with their attention.

Finn knew she was aware of his presence. He just knew. She was ignoring him. He could outwait her, he was sure. But really, as much as he wanted something to do, waiting was not that something. He’d been out healing for so long, and now he just needed some exercise while he finished mending from the lightsaber wounds. “Ma’am?” he addressed her in the dripping stillness of the garden.

Straightening her back slowly, the older woman gave the dark-skinned man at the entrance to the garden an unhappy look. “What do you want, Stormtrooper?” The voice was deep, not unpleasant, but Finn didn’t think she was much of a talker.

“General Organa sent me to assist you -” Finn repeated his orders “- with the move-out. Now that the First Order knows the Resistance is based here, they’ll -” Of an afterthought, he changed his pronoun: “We’ll have to move.”

A sigh deep as a well, filled with unhappiness, was her response. “General Organa, eh? Ten years my junior and treating me like a child?” That was followed by a muttered complaint, as the woman picked up a bin and began to fill it with tools. “Did she know you were a stormtrooper when she sent you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Finn began to gather the bits and pieces of metal and plastic spread about the bed nearest him.

That was received with what might have been, “meddler” and “arrogant”. Finally, the gray head turned to face him, eyes boring into his. “Did you tell her? Or did she find out?”

Finn didn’t see what difference it made, but said, “I told her. She needed to know about the First Order’s base.”

“Starkiller?” So the woman was not entirely out of the loop. “You were stationed there?”.

Finn deposited the tools into her bin. “Yes, ma’am.” If this had been his captain, he would have given his designation. That was not him. Not anymore. “How did you know I was a stormtrooper?” he asked.

“Everything about you screams ‘stormtrooper’, boy. Except for that jacket. Did Dameron give you that?” was her tart reply.

Well, Poe had said he could keep it. That it suited him. “Yes, ma’am.” Gently taking the bin from her arms, he moved to follow her deeper into the tangle of green.

“We won’t be taking these plants. They’re too large, and are well enough suited to stay here in the raised beds. They won’t take over or knock out the local plants either. Not invasive. But we’ll need to harvest the beds near the back. They can’t be left alive, and we need their components for the medical bots. Then we move the semi-sentients. It would be cruel to leave those. And don’t call me ma’am. I’m not your captain.”

“Excuse me -” Finn almost called her ma’am again. “What is your rank? What should I call you?”

“Commander,” the deep voice informed him. Yes, Rachel Darkfinder had risen that far. Continuing, she said, “But don’t be calling me that. If you need to call me anything, use my name. Call me Darkfinder.”

“Darkfinder?” That startled Finn. “Darkfinder” recalled the children’s barracks, and horror tales of the Rebellion, whispered after lights out. Death appearing from behind, blaster fire cutting down rank upon rank of stormtroopers with no pity or escape. A destroyer tracking stormtroopers without mercy.

“Yes?” she said blandly, watching him now with an expressionless face.

“Nothing, Darkfinder.” Finn straightened his shoulders. After all, he could always look for her information in the system later. “What needs to be done?”

Cutting down the thorny plants in the back took the rest of the cycle. Darkfinder had tossed him a pair of thick gloves. “Don’t get any of that sap on your skin,” she told him. “Its acid will burn, and what it doesn’t burn will be poisoned.”

They took the pieces of blackwood, processed them in the mech, and stored them in small plas-steel cylinders. Together they hauled containers filled with half-plant, half-animal hybrids down to the landing field. Well, they hauled them onto the repulsa-lifts, then transported them to the alert young woman with the tech-pad who acknowledged them with a nod.

The midday meal was taken in the canteen at a table full of silent, older fighters, scarred from the battles of the rebellion. Male or female, they had a similarity to them. Finn watched the other tables, filled with young men and women of many races - excited by the move, chattering about the great victory over the First Order and the Starkiller. “You can sit with them, if you want to,” Darkfinder told him. “I know you’re used to being with people.” She was pulling off the black glove on her right hand to release the mechanized prosthetic that had replaced it. Finn could see that the skin was not quite lifelike.

“No, I’m fine here,” he told the older woman. After all, Poe was gone on a scouting mission, and Rey had taken the Falcon to find Starwalker. He knew no one else except for the general.

She watched him for a moment - gray eyes gleaming - before saying, “Suit yourself.”

A helmet banged down on the plas-steel table by them. “Raksha!” the two-meter-tall Kazak hissed. “It is to be my vessel that will haul your plant life. Do you come with them this time?”

Finn did not hear her reply. Frantic thoughts were banging around inside his skull. Raksha? Raksha, the demon, was a made-up monster. Like the Hook, a being hiding in the shadows, waiting to take life. Not an old woman in a garden. Darkfinder was one thing - a human terror. Raksha was a demon.

“Finn!” A hand smacked down on the table in front of him. His jump-knocked tray spilled cooked grain across the flat white surface.

“Yes?” The boy hoped that word hadn’t wavered as much as he thought it had.

“Wake up, Stormtrooper. Back to work. Tell Yazmin that we need two more repulsa-lift sleds to move the plantings to Kakar’s ship. And two of those layabouts to help guide them. I’ll start prepping the pots that are going with us for transport.” Darkfinder pulled the leather glove back over her artificial hand and gathered empty plates, utensils and bits of trash onto her tray. “Don’t forget to clean up that spill. No sense leaving it for the kitchen staff.”

“No. No, Darkfinder. I mean, yes. I’ll do that.”

He was fixed into place by a lightsaber look. “They still talk about Raksha, do they? Among the ranks?”

There was no disguising his flinch. It seemed a satisfactory enough answer. “Good,” the old woman told him sharply. “Remember that you’re with the Resistance now. Not the First Order. Not the Empire.”

“Then, it’s probably best if you stop calling me ‘Stormtrooper’, isn’t it? Darkfinder?” Finn wasn’t trying to be cocky. He was, however, uncertain as to correct protocol when speaking to a mass murderer. Other than, of course, one of his former superiors.

Those gray eyes measured him. “Alright, boy.” That lined face nodded.

Still, “boy” was better than, “stormtrooper”. Maybe someday he’d get her to call him Finn.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to beta-reader Lunamoth116!


End file.
